Christopher Calicott

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  • Phèdre de Racine — Phaedra

    Phèdre, une pièce écrite par Jean Racine

    Phèdre, écrite par Racine, est une pièce tragique de la Grèce ancienne. Il s’agit d’une belle-mère qui, à cause de dieu Vénus, est tombée amoureuse avec le fils de son mari. Le fils, Hippolyte, est choqué par le renseignement que Phèdre l’aime.

    Dans Acte II, scène V de la pièce, Phèdre parlait à Hippolyte, surtout de la situation avec son père Thésée dont ils pensaient était mort à ce moment-là. Elle dit qu’elle descendrait avec Hippolyte au labyrinthe du monstre de la Crète et « se serait avec vous retrouvée, ou perdue. » Il y a au moins deux façons de comprendre le mot « perdue, » ici. La première façon, c’est à dire que Phèdre irait au labyrinthe avec Hippolyte et serait fidèle à lui et ne serait pas retrouvée encore dans le monde sans lui. Si Hippolyte était perdu, elle serait perdue, aussi. En d’autres termes, c’est à dire le vrai sens — elle serait physiquement perdue au labyrinthe. Cependant, il y a un deuxième sens. Le monstre de la Crète qui est maître du labyrinthe représente le monstre dans sa tête—cette obsession avec son amour pour Hippolyte. Par ailleurs, le labyrinthe lui-même représente les émotions et la psychologie de Phèdre. Elle descend dans une sorte de labyrinthe de son esprit dans la pièce. Donc, il y a au moins deux façons de comprendre le mot « perdue. »

    Phèdre a dit à Hippolyte des autres choses d’équivoque dans la pièce. Une telle chose, c’est quand Phèdre dit « Que dis-je? Il n’est point mort, puisqu’il respire en vous. » Ce vers me frappe comme une chose de mauvais augure. En fait, Thésée vit à ce moment-là. Eventuellement, Hippolyte mourra à cause d’une demande par son père au dieu de la mer qui s’appelle Neptune. Enfin, la tragédie des circonstances quand Thésée apprend la vérité tuera Thésée psychologiquement. Alors, Thésée respirait en Hippolyte dans un sens, mais pas longtemps. En Phèdre, Racine a créé une vraie tragédie complexe, avec plusieurs façons de comprendre le texte.

    • December 6th 2012
    • Articles
  • A Conversation About Modern Chivalry

    …led me to a poetry quote by Ezra Pound

    As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
    When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
    So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
    O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

    • July 22nd 2011
    • Quotes
  • Osama bin Laden is Dead

    I can not believe it has taken damned near 10 years.  It won’t improve national security.  It will challenge and motivate those who would seek revenge in his name.  When I heard about it I was sitting in my chair; I was about to start some philosophy homework.  The television news said the president was going to speak shortly regarding an important national security announcement, late on a Sunday evening and completely unannounced.  I am glad they got him.

    • May 1st 2011
    • Articles
  • Wine Ratings

    For years now wine ratings have seemed to be undermining their own value. What’s the value in a “100 point wine rating” scale if it only uses the top twenty percent?

    A little while back, I decided to put the metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper and put down in words my arguments against the current North American wine ratings system.  No wine ratings system is perfect, to be sure, but some of the reasons Robert Parker originally adopted a 100 point rating scale have become that system’s own handicap:  the American grading system and mindset highly values the best in “grades” and since the current 100 point wine rating scale is correlated to the American school system’s method of grading, there is very little tolerance for a range of “good” scores.

    To make matters worse wine ratings are arcane, showing little if any information from where the number was derived, and it reinforces an old and wrong idea that wine is somehow inaccessible.  This is a terrible fate for a delicious product that is so loved around the world.  Today, people want – expect – to be able to interact with what they purchase, and wine should not be any different.  My wine ratings scale is explained ad nauseam in my article, but if you have the time I think you will find that it makes a lot of sense.  In using it thus far, I think that’s it’s very, very nice to see that you can be sitting beside someone, taste the same wine, and very often find that your scores are in the same ballpark.  That’s good for wine and fun for you! Enjoy my wine ratings scale.

    Tags: wine wine ratings wine tasting

    • March 4th 2010
    • Articles
  • 10 Years and 39 Billion Beats Later…

    In February of 2000, a group of friends in love with dance music, got together and put together a party that many still remember today. It was so much fucking fun!

    As far as electronic dance music events go, “Do You Remember Love?” wasn’t the biggest, it wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the -est of anything, most likely. What it was, though, was an incredible experience and memory for me, personally, and it’s really hard to believe that this week marks ten years since this party went off in a big field in the middle of almost nowhere, twenty miles south of Dallas, Texas.

    We’d had a venue booked near downtown Dallas that was shut down by the anti-dance music culture authorities a short time before our party was due to go off, and it was not a little bit nerve-wracking, but ultimately – with some help from the people that had the original venue in Dallas – we got a, well, pasture, to play in with an open-sided pavilion for the main “room.”  It was cold that night. Really cold.  The jungle “room” was further out in the field. What a bunch of troopers!  My Mom (who died later that year in December, sadly) worked the “door” which was an opening in the fence to the pasture where cars were going to park.  I remember security checking for dangerous things in people’s trunks and finding a box of sugar cubes and my Mom curiously picking it up thinking it was such a strange thing to bring to a party…  Coffee or tea, anyone? and me loudly saying “Noooooooo!!!!” in what felt like slow motion, snatching it away from her (she would have no clue, naturally, that it was probably covered in LSD.)  Scary at the time but hilarious, in retrospect. Disaster averted, the party went on to be both a vibe and fiscal success.

    “That party bought my VW!” — Sean “Turtle” Anderson

    So in honor of the 10th anniversary of a party I will never forget, I decided I should post online the mix I made the night before in haste in my apartment living room before driving to Dallas for the event.  If anyone else that spun at the party has mixes and can put them online somewhere let me know and I will link them up here!  It would be awesome if someone had DJ Colette’s mix recorded from that night, as well.

    Do You Remember Love mix by Christopher Calicott

    Tags: dance house music raves

    • February 18th 2010
    • Articles
  • My Las Vegas Blog

    Sam Brown helped me with a design for my Las Vegas entertainment blog, “While Las Vegas Sleeps…” Stop by and give a look-see!

    Also, come by my other Las Vegas site Las Vegas Critics for reviews, not just about Las Vegas, but all sorts of things from music to movies and wine.

    Tags: css Las Vegas web design

    • November 25th 2009
    • Articles
  • Seriously, Oregon?

    time-poll

    Tags: politics really??

    • November 17th 2009
    • Images
  • Brown Acid Pumpkin

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    I crushed it this year making jack-o-lanterns. Here are some pictures of my pumpkin.

    Tags: halloween jack-o-lanterns pumpkins

    • October 31st 2009
    • Images
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Christopher Calicott

About Christopher Calicott

He's a complicated man, and no one understands him but his wommmaaann.. Okay, well, that's not exactly true, but I don't have my own song (yet.)

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Contact by email: purrin@binary.net

  • Content © 2009 Christopher Calicott
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